


All I Want

by kikibug13



Category: Les Misérables (Movie 1978)
Genre: Emotions, Family, Gen, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5017597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Valjean and his sister Jeanne are reunited. Much happens after Cosette's wedding, for all that Valjean might have thought his obligations fulfilled, at that point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I Want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evocates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/gifts).



It has been days. Javert has been quiet, but that is nothing anyone finds remarkable. People talk to him. He sometimes answers. Sometimes, he almost hears them, instead of guessing what they're saying. 

The only sound that echoes in his ears is a whispered, faint call of his name, and then another, louder, heart-wrenching. Then, silence. Fabric shifting. The sound of a grate moving. 

Then the same, all over again. 

It is not the what's brought him here by the river, though the knowledge that, in the end, Valjean knows him far better, so much better, than Javert ever knew him, is not helping. Mostly, he knows that he should have died already. He's guilty. He has always been guilty. Valjean... Valjean has his remarkable man, and his past. Javert has the law, and he has failed the law. Or the law has failed him. So now his body exists, but that is all. 

He sets down his gun and his cane. He jumps. 

The water is cold, but it's also calm. He does not know how to swim, but that does not seem to matter. His body splashes up to the surface on its own. He tries to still it, to make himself sink to the bottom, but the water buoys him, anyway. 

Then there is a log, floating down the current. Javert sees it out of the corner of his eye a moment before it hits him square in the forehead. _Good. Finally._

Darkness. 

***

It was lonely, in the large, sunny house without Cosette. Valjean packed up his possessions, and moved to one of the smaller properties. When Cosette and her bridegroom returned from their journey, they would probably live with M. Gillenormand, but... he thought it might be a good idea for her to have a place of her own, anyway. 

Still, even the smaller place was too quiet, and he was too tired to stay there, alone. He was afraid that, now that he was finally content, he would give up on living further, and that... that may also be a sin. There were still good things he could do, he thought. 

So, slowly, he resumed his charity circuits. Poorer hospitals, orphanages, schools. It was easy, and familiar. He _knew_ that he was doing good, here and now, and that - it helped settle him somewhat. Not completely, not at night when his dreams returned him to haunting places. No longer to Toulon, but to the gutter and the empty echoes of his voice. Maybe he was living on borrowed time. Maybe the time was borrowed from Javert. 

There was not a thing he could do to change that. 

It was in one of the smaller hospital that he found his answer, of a sort. He was walking among the ailing with one of the nurses, and she was explaining how an aged man had been fished out of the river, with a bulge on his head and somewhat waterlogged, but not in true danger of his life; that he could not remember his own name - when Valjean's eyes fell on the familiar face. 

He stopped in his tracks. 

"M. Fauchelevent?" The nurse's voice was confused. 

He motioned towards the bed in the corner, where a long body was curled up in misery and evident restlessness. "That is the man that you were telling me about, is it not?" 

"Yes?" 

"Would you go to him and address him as M. Javert?" 

"Do you know him, then, M. Fauchelevent?" 

"I do, Sister." He tore his eyes away from the gray hair and dull black gaze, and turned them to the nurse. "You mentioned that with a hit on the head like that..."

"Oh, we can be sure of nothing, but some people remember everything, given enough time." Her own eyes sharpened. "Though it certainly helps if there is somebody familiar nearby..."

He almost laughed. "No, sister. I doubt that my presence would help him in any way. Please, go address him by his proper name."

"Just M. Javert?"

"Yes. Just M. Javert." 

She did so, but there was no sign of anything akin to recognition on the face that he was used to seeing so stern, and was now so slack. So empty. So wrong.

Valjean swallowed with his now-dry throat, and, against his better judgment, stepped closer to the cot, himself. Echoed the name, quietly. "Javert."

_Him_ the dark eyes focused on, immediately. The familiar scowl was missing, instead replaced by a faint, confused frown. A short, aborted motion with one hand as the patient sat up. "You are supposed to shout it, now." Another twitch of the hand; Valjean wondered if he was trying to gesture, of it was some sort of nervous tic that he couldn't control. "It should echo. But voices here don't echo. And there is nowhere to hide."

Valjean's hands stilled with an effort, then the one not holding his cane and hat reached up, running fingers through hair that was too clean, too well-arranged, for the memory that went with the words, the begging words. A memory that Javert did not seem to have retained too clearly, and, yet one that seemed to haunt him all the same, just as it did Valjean.

The nurse's bright eyes were fixed on him. "Those are more words than he has spoken since he was brought here, M. Fauchelevent. Please, please! Will you not help the poor wretch?" 

Valjean tried to deny her plea again, but...

Maybe he could help. And, if he did, when Javert remembered himself - he would return to his life, and all would be right. (Or he might kill him, yet. There was no innocent life on the line, now. But that was a risk that Valjean thought he had to take, in the face of those too-empty eyes.)

That was how Javert, currently-missing Inspector, First Class, of the Parisian Police, came to live with an old parole breaker, former mayor, and, by all objective indicators, habitual criminal. A man that had been a constant in Javert's life, it could be said, since Javert had been rather young... But it was certainly not the kind of presence that should help. 

Yet, somehow, Javert trusted him. At least the first few days, he was a miserable, but exemplary patient. Then...

Then things started to return to him. Little bits at a time. 

At first, it was a vague but firm persuasion that he was being treated way more luxuriously than he should be. That he could not afford this, and he could not take mercy. 

Valjean did what he could. What he always did, hammering another nail on his own coffin. He lied again. "It has all been arranged for, Javert. You need not worry, all has been paid for, and it is not mercy you are receiving." It was far more important to Valjean for the man to get better than to keep untarnished an honesty that was already rotten to the core. 

Then more specific memories trickled in. By the time Javert woke up, came to the kitchen for his habitual cup of coffee, and greeted him with a familiar scowl, lips pressed thin, Valjean thought that he must remember everything, or close to it. 

Valjean also knew that he irrevocably, inconceivably, cared for this man now. Deeply. All the things he had known about him - his honesty and his dedication, his purity of spirit - albeit misguided, his certainty, his passion. He had seen them all when Javert had been at his most vulnerable, and the old heart that surely had no business waking up now had been weeping and rejoicing both, somehow. 

Valjean's lips had remained silent. 

He braced himself for the question that was coming. He thought Javert would ask after his gun. Or perhaps that Valjean join him walking towards the nearest department of the police. 

The words that came, instead, were, "did you bring me out of the river?" There was anger in that voice, yes. But there was also pain, and regret. 

Valjean shook his head, honesty easy on his tongue and in his eyes. "No. I found you in the hospital, already rescued, and knowing nobody, least of all yourself. As I knew who you were, I was asked to take care of you. And I could not... I could not take you to your superiors."

He hadn't known if any of them would have cared what happened to Javert. Besides, there was still the order for Jean Valjean's arrest. Surely any good officer, inspector, commissioner, would ask why and how he knew Javert, how and why he insisted on the man being taken care of. Somebody would find the truth. And Valjean ... well. All his efforts, it would be all for naught. 

So here Javert had stayed, still looking at Valjean with those dark, dark eyes.

And Valjean asked a question of his own. "Did you fall in the river, or did you jump?"

Javert stiffened, his eyes tightening, turned on his heel, and left the kitchen. He did not leave the place altogether. When Valjean brought him his coffee, a little later, he took it, though his sparse thanks were even quieter than usual. 

The next morning, when Valjean woke, Javert was gone. 

Only to return two hours later.

"I-- It seems that my room's rent has-- I do not--" 

Valjean blinked, stepping back from the door. He wondered if what Javert had owned had been dumped unceremoniously on the street, and now his spare uniforms, or whatever, had been squabbled over by the kind of men that Javert despised, and by now long gone.

"You are welcome to stay as long as you want. Even for good."

"You should not do that."

"Perhaps." He found his lips curling up in a small, sad smile. "I have made choices that have left me in worse situations." Instead of waiting for a response to that, Valjean pushed into a new direction. "Will you return to work?" 

Javert glared, as he shrugged off his coat, setting it carefully on the rack as every single day after the walks they had taken. "If they will have me."

Valjean smile turned fuller. "If they know what is good for them, they will." M. Madeleine would have taken him back in a heartbeat. 

Apparently, M. Chabouillet's opinion matched that. By the slightly abashed look Javert was still wearing when he returned home after going to inquire, maybe Valjean could have deposited Javert on him, instead of...

He did not regret it. Instead, he coaxed out of Javert information on what he needed to purchase for outfits, and quietly went to buy the necessities. Javert received them with his shoulders hunched, without meeting his eyes, but without argument. 

***

It is far too difficult, to return to work. The streets are familiar, in a way, but the people in them are not. The words that he's understood for years now sound strange, and he has to listen with attention, lest he get completely lost. 

It is an entirely new world, for Javert, Inspector, First Class. 

And there is always, always, the quiet voice of Valjean in his ear, suggesting, asking, questioning, begging. 

On barely his third day on the street, he is already noticing differences.

Instead of lying to him, misdirecting him, one of the filthy boys on the street (so different yet also so alike as the one shot down before the barricades) gives him a true tip-off for an actual dangerous criminal. The boy's eye is bruised, and Javert wonders who has done that to him. It looks a larger mark than the fist of one of his peers could leave. 

He arrests fewer people. 

Some of those he doesn't, he sends to the charities that he has visited with Valjean, that he knows Valjean finances, instead. Chabouillet frowns at his reports, but, instead of berating him for lower number of arrests, commends him for sound judgment. 

Javert is lost, wandering the streets like a ghost. 

The only times when he feels close to... not normal, but a little bit less confused? Is when he is sitting with Valjean in the small living room, talking, or keeping silence. With this, he knows one thing. Even if Valjean did not rescue him from the Seine, he has still saved his life. Twice. He owes this man. Duty, he understands, even when he is at a loss as to how to fulfill it.

He has no idea how to begin to pay him back, but he is aware of the enormous debt. And, of all things, the only repayment that seems fitting is... kindness, in turn. But what kind of kindness can he return?

And also... 

Valjean's calm words, consistent actions, his quiet dignity and integrity. They don't preach what is right. But they teach, all the same. 

Valjean... he has his remarkable man, who cleansed Valjean's soul of sin. Javert has Valjean, who can destroy his world and rebuild it, too. While Javert did not remember to resist, and, yet true labour all the same.

In the quiet, content hours together, before bed, or after the graveyard shift, or whenever they do happen, Javert thinks that, maybe, it was him who got the better part of the deal. Even if he could not put into words why. 

It has been weeks of this, and a part of Javert despairs of ever thinking of anything that would begin to repay the immense obligation that Valjean never seems to remember exists, instead lavishing yet more care and smiles and words that ring wise and true. And Javert does not even find it within himself to scowl, thinking about that. Instead, the pair of kind eyes haunts him, as do words. So many words, heard and hated or ignored through the years.

He is investigating an arson, tonight. The clues he has are few, and so he ends up following rumors and even gossip, distasteful as that may be. Witchcraft, for example, does not exist, not even from old women - this one must be in her seventies - with deep-set eyes and no teeth who still try, somehow, to keep their spines straight. But this old hag - her eyes, they are so uninterested that Javert does not need to question her to know she was not involved. She has neither wanted nor hated a thing or person with a burning passion for far too long. 

"Good evening. My name is Javert. I want to know--"

Apparently, whatever good his new reputation is including, she has not heard it, or believed it. She hisses, drawing away, hunching around herself defensively. "I known nothing, M'sieur. I don't know a thing, didn't hurt no no-one." 

"I believe you. Nobody has been hurt, and I would like to keep things so. I am trying to apprehend whoever did do it before he can repeat his crime, this time with somebody caught in the flames."

"No, no, m'sieur. I know not a thing. 'tis my solemn promise, I know no thing." 

The phrasing tugs at Javert's mind for a moment, before his hands grow rigid, eyes wide. Mouth works soundlessly for a long moment, before he can find the right words for a question. "You do not seem to be from Paris, originally, madame." She straightens, just a little, at the address. _Far too respectable for her_ , a part of his mind points out, which he knew. But even that is not enough to bring out any lustre in her eyes, and so Javert knows it is not enough. Not enough. "Where do you come from?" 

She scowls at him. "The Brie," comes the grudging response. "Faverolles." 

"And - forgive me if the question seems strange, for it must, but is your name Jeanne?" 

"... yes. I am Mother Jeanne, even though few of my children-- Why, m'sieur?" 

He hesitates only the briefest of moments. "I... Seven children?" 

"I did have seven, yes, though two of them are dead now. What's it to you, m'sieur l'Inspecteur?" 

"I believe there may be somebody who will want to meet you."

"No nobody who want to meet me, m'sieur. Not even most of my own children, nor their children. Nor _their_ children."

Javert's breath actually catches, though he does not let it show. 

Maybe... maybe this is what he can give Valjean. What he has lost so long ago. What he must have wanted all this time, but, as a fugitive, could never attempt to reach for, even if he knew where to start. 

Family. _His_ family, besides the whore's-- besides Fantine's daughter. 

A convict has no right to people caring for him, no matter how much he might have cared for them. And any sign of that must have been buried deep, deep, even before he walked away from Toulon and into an entirely, entirely different future. 

Javert does not smile, for that may frighten Mother Jeanne. 

Instead, he invites her home.

***

Valjean had been staring at the same page in his book, lit up beautifully by the afternoon sun, for he knew not how long. He could not focus, just now, and he could not pinpoint the reason for it. Other than, maybe, that for the first time in a long time he was... 

He had become aware that was not needed. For the first time in a long, long time, he _knew_ he wasn't needed. Cosette was happy, that much he knew. Javert... Javert had given him a reason to keep on going, but - Javert was steady, now. A little confused, but steady day after day. 

Yet the younger man still returned, pursed lips belied by beseeching eyes, by surprisingly gentle hands when they happened to touch, over breakfast or over talking in the evening. Still. Javert no longer needed him, either.

Who was Jean Valjean when he wasn't needed anymore? Ultime Fauchelevent had a loving daughter, but she had a full life to focus on now, a rich, happy life. And he, he was...

His painfully trudging thoughts were interrupted from trying to become morose, a direction they had been threatening to sink into for an hour at least, by the sound of the front door opening, and Javert's voice, quiet, saying, "this way, please."

The book was closed and put aside swiftly, and Valjean rose with a small frown. "You are home early. Did you get..."

_shot_ , was the word he would go on with, but instead his frowned deepened. Javert was clearly unhurt, which was good. There was an old woman, older than Valjean himself, with him. She was a little afraid of him, though nowhere near as much as some that he'd known. 

"Good afternoon." The prim, correct voice was almost normal sounding. Almost. Still, Javert did not hesitate. "There is somebody I believe... I believe you would want to meet." Valjean kept his eyes on him for a long moment, before turning to the face of the stranger in his home.

She was standing hunched, possibly because of having been brought to the presence of two strange men, in a strange house. Her clothes were in tatters, but they are clean, as much as a day or two on the streets could keep, no longer than that since they have been washed. Her creased face was thin, cheeks hollow. 

"I don't understand why you brought me here, M. Javert, I don't." 

Just like that, Valjean's heart was in his throat, eyes wide. The voice tugged at him, and so did the accent. The defiance and confusion, even. He wet his lips, opened them to speak. 

Tried again. 

"Jeanne?" 

It was - it could not be true. And yet, he found that his hands were shaking. If nothing else... If nothing else, Javert would not have brought her here unless. Unless he believed she was his sister. After all this time, after all this effort to find her, it seemed impossible. 

Yet, he could not find any other explanation.

"That would be my name, yes. What can I do for you?" She was covering her fear well. Of course she was. Anger, she would let people see. Fear, never. 

Javert broke the tension building between them. "I think so... Valjean."

The pause was, Valjean did not doubt, a contrived one. For effect. Even so, he was not prepared for the woman's... for Jeanne's reaction. All traces of color drained from her face, she trembled, once. Eyes wide, eyebrows raised almost up to her hair kerchief. She stilled, and then, slowly, took one step towards him, a hand rising up to reach for his cheek, though she stopped well away from his skin. Her look was searching through his face, he knew not what for. 

He knew not whether she found it, either. Her voice sounded breathless and questioning and full of so much hope that Valjean could not have borne it, except for he was already destroyed by the utter, forgotten familiarity of it. 

"Jean?" 

No living soul had called him that in close to two decades. With this kind of tone, twice as long as that. 

He didn't know how badly he was shaking, his heart too tight in his chest and his lungs almost seizing, until Javert's hand tightened on his arm. "Valjean. Sit. You too..." Yes, there was a pause. No, Javert could not have skipped it; even right now, Valjean knew that. "Mother."

"Please." Valjean wasn't sure what he was saying, only that he had to. "Please, Jeanne. Do not leave. We need to - we need to talk."

The sharp, pointed features on Jeanne's face softened in a way that he thought he had forgotten, but realized, now, that it had haunted his dreams so often that it had never gone away. Still there. All of it.

He didn't know which one of them moved first, but the next thing he realized was that the two of them were holding each other, crying on each other, loud and hard and broken. And he could not stop even a single sound, not right now. 

Valjean could not tell when Javert had left - by the time he thought to look away from his sister's face, as they were sitting on the sofa, her wrinkled hands warmed by his much larger ones (as they used to do so long ago) the tall figure of the man who had made this, _this_ happiness possible was absent from the room. Even through his current bliss, a sharp stab of worry reminded him that Javert could still do something unwise, if his world was changed too much, too fast, but he was not capable of tearing himself away from Jeanne, right now. He had to hope, and trust in God. 

Her life had involved fewer turns of fate than his, but far more difficulties, as she tried to survive. As she lost her sons and daughters, one by one. In a way, what he had heard about her in prison had been a low point; she had, slowly, managed to find most of the other children. Or what was left to know about them. A young bride, her eyes dull, had been mourning the death of the oldest boy, when Jeanne found her. Her womb had turned out empty, and Jeanne had lost touch with her as they both worked their way in Paris. Two of the girls had been carried off by fever on a cold winter night, their bodies stiff and still tangled up together as they had tried to keep each other warm and alive. 

Of the others, one girl had married well, and her middle child was expecting her first child, now - Jeanne had fought with her and left the house in now short-lived bitterness, a week or two back. The youngest boy was raising his two sons and their four cats alone, but with an honest job. Two of the boys, she had never managed to find. They had left her home together, Pierre and Henri, and she had found some rumors about their passing through places in the country and in the city both, but never any specific information. 

She was too old to work and, while she got some help from her daughter, she did not have any money to travel with. She was far, far too old to walk. 

"We will figure it out, Jeanne. We will try to find them."

She eyed him shrewdly. "You are still trying to understand about - great nephews and nieces, aren't you." 

"... yes. My daughter - she is not old enough to have children. Though, in truth, her mother, God rest her soul, would have been younger than some of your children."

"You took a child for a bride?" 

"What?" Valjean could feel his eyes widen as they had not done in a very long time. "No, no, Jeanne - no. 'tis... so very not like that. Fantine, I met her when she was dying. Of consumption. She had left her child with some bad people, after the father left them. I tried to bring comfort, maybe, to her last days, but... the child passed away without seeing her daughter again. I promised her that the girl, her girl, will want for nothing, and she hasn't. She has not."

Her eyes were warm on him, and he basked in that warmth. Jeanne had been responsible for him for so long, before it all went wrong, that her approval made the _world_ right. Not as much as the Bishop's would have, but this. This was still far more than he could ever hope for. 

"Jean... how?" 

He blinked. And then, with another look for Javert - this time alarmed, worried - he realized that all the questions had been his, and all the story told had been hers, and her children's. He had...

He had still not told a soul his story. 

Head lowered, he met her eyes again, wet his lips. 

"Jeanne... This will not be an easy story to hear. I- if, after you have heard it, you want to leave, to not know me anymore, I am sure that you have wished you did not have a convict for a brother before. I will understand. I will understand."

"Jean. Stop postponing what is difficult and just come out with it. It was always easier that way."

He shook his head, sadly, but took a deep breath. "First of all, I was in Toulon for nineteen years..."

***

Javert walks in the door quietly, as usual. At the end of his shift, also as usual. It is late, but the fire is still burning. The silence is also familiar. The tumbler of alcohol, nearly drunk, by Valjean's hand is not. He has, indeed, not seen the man to drink anything stronger than wine, and that rarely. He has known there is stronger liquor in the house, because Valjean has bought it from someone too proud to take money as charity, but it has been untouched for a long time. Longer than Javert has been in this house, anyway. 

From the drawn look on that face, almost as white as his hair, Javert is suddenly worried, as he has not been worried in a very long time. 

"Valjean. What happened? Did she--"

"She is asleep in my bed. I will clear away the room I had prepared for Cosette's of what I brought here for her, and Jeanne will stay there."

"Then why are you..." He waves the top of his cane (a different one from that which he left on the bank of the Seine, but familiar enough, by now) in Valjean's direction. "Are you unwell? I thought I would--" Javert bites off the words that he cannot bring himself to actually think, let alone say. 

He wanted to give some happiness, _something_ good, even though he could not repay him for - for the patience to remake his world. To show kindness to him a little bit as Valjean gives it himself, though Javert is certain that he will never be able to quite match that.

His heart, the very same that Valjean has reminded him exists, and matters, the one which has been healing since before he could remember his name properly, seems to be dropping through a hole in his stomach at the sight of Valjean like this. The man is in pain, even more so than he had been in Toulon, or at the bedside of-- that woman, giving her his sacred promise. And it's Javert who did it-- 

Then those eyes brighten, the strong frame straightening. "Oh, I am such a--" he gets up from the armchair, moving to Javert, and taking both of his hands, one with cane and all, in his. "Thank you. Thank you, Javert. You have brought hope and love to me when I thought all that I could be granted to me in this life had been granted, and left. _Thank_ you." 

Javert doesn't gasp. He doesn't flinch away, though the hands around his are so warm that they almost feel like they are burning through his skin. But he does know that his eyes have grown wide. His heart has stopped falling and is now soaring - he takes a moment to adjust to that, too. 

"I came across her after-- it doesn't matter to you, does it." 

Valjean shakes his head, carefully. It probably aches, by the care he takes; Javert is too distracted to try to make him take _more_ care. "You recognized her. You brought her to me. I could not have imagined... No one has done anything like that for me, Javert."

"No one has saved my life, nor taken care of me when I remembered nothing. Especially after knowing that, believing what I did, getting better might mean that I would kill you."

"You did not kill me. You saved my life, too."

"I _spared_ your life. That is--"

"Not so different!"

"Valjean--" He cuts himself off. "Why are you upset, then?" 

Valjean's lips thin, and he looks away. Drops his hands, and Javert has to move closer to the fire to fight back the chill of the absence of that touch. "I told her ... about my life. Most of it."

"And?" 

"That is all. I have not told it, before. I did not expect... I did not know it would be like living it again."

Javert frowns at the fire. Then turns to frown at Valjean, too, but he has resumed his seat, and the glass is in his hands, his eyes on it. "I know your life."

Look up, familiar shrug. "You do, but I did not have to tell you about much of it. You knew."

"And Cosette?"

"... Jean Valjean would ruin her life. 'tis only Ultime Fauchelevent that she knows, or will know." 

"She is a baroness, now."

"All the more reason--"

"Valjean."

"I have ruined my sister's life a long time ago. She went through so much suffering because I could not be there and share the burden. She has lost three of her children, and two more, she does not know what happened to them. She has toiled until she's withered, alone. I cannot draw the same fate to Cosette. I will not."

"... two of her children are missing?" 

"They have been missing for decades, Javert."

"If I know their names and last actual known locations..."

The restless, pained look fades from Valjean's face, and his eyes sharpen with curiosity, with hope, once more. "You will try to find my two nephews? Truly?" 

Javert probably shouldn't agree. Should not even consider trying - whatever their fate, if the boys lived, they are adults now. And yet, that hope. The possibility to do something right, another thing right. To bring somebody - no, he should not lie to himself. To bring Valjean another piece of the home that's been rent from him so long ago? Javert finds that he cannot resist the rightness of that. 

***

It was raining when the carriage pulled in front of the front door, and the bustle of people coming in alerted Valjean that his sister and his guest - or did Javert merit another word, instead? - had returned, at long last. He closed the book, standing up to go and meet them - then was glad that he had left it, or anything else that he might drop, for Javert was limping, a bandage over his shoulder, too. He was leaning most of his weight on a man who looked enough like Valjean himself to make recognition at least halfway positive: Jeanne, though pale and wet, and looking even older, somehow, was closing the door behind them all. 

She looked around, met his eyes, and swallowed. "Henri... this is your uncle, Jean. Please follow his instructions. I will go warm myself at the fire." 

Valjean wanted to know what had happened, now, but Javert's state put a different priority on his actions. Instead, he led the two men carefully to Javert's room, letting his nephew build up the fire as he himself helped - a still familiar task, from when Javert could not remember enough, to take care of himself - the Inspector shed the wet clothes, put on a clean shift, and slip under the bed cover. 

"Do I need to call in a doctor?"

Javert shook his head. "I have been seen by a doctor. Both I and Mother Jeanne have instructions how to tend to these. They are bandaged neatly and will not get infected."

"Javert--" 

"It is not as bad as it seems. Go see your sister and your nephew, Valjean. I need to rest awhile."

Valjean still lingered, taking Javert's pulse - steady and strong, God be praised - before he finally nodded, and led the younger man out to his own room, letting him change as Jeanne had already done. Seeing her figure hunched over the fireplace in the living room, he sent the housekeeper to build the fire in her room, as well as his own, and change the bedding in his room. Only then did he walk to Jeanne, trying not to let his leg drag too much - it bothered her, and it was worse on stormy nights like this.

When he put his hands around her shoulders, she turned, and cried into his shoulder, first. "Pierre is also dead, Jean. He-- your Inspector tried, he truly did. But there were too many of them."

"Shh. I am sorry, Jeanne. I am sorry." 

It was later, when she was calmed down and settled on the sofa with a blanket around her, a fresh handkerchief in her hand against the tears that returned, again and again, that the story came out. 

"They stayed together, my boys. I was afraid, with how many places I heard rumors about them, that they may have turned to bad ways, but they didn't. They had hired themselves as guards to a bank, one that has offices in various towns, and they often traveled with the money being sent back and forth. They worked that for a long time, my boys." Valjean had known her worry, about possibly finding them having lost the good God's way, and could hear her relief, her pride. 

"We tried to find you, too, Maman." Henri's voice was low, tired, but honest, as he stepped out of the hallway. Valjean moved quietly so he could sit by Jeanne, and handed him a cup of tea. 

"'tis not easy to find somebody in Paris," he murmured, and Henri nodded. 

"Pierre married, he has two girls and a boy. I never did." He shrugged, at the two older people looking at him. "My nieces and nephews were good enough for me." There was more to his words, but Valjean thought tonight was not a good time for finding out what it was. 

Instead, he looked between mother and son. "Somebody was trying to steal the money you were traveling with, were they not?" 

Henri bit his lip, and nodded, Jeanne reaching up to dab at the newly appeared tears. 

"M. Javert... he is very good at all sorts of fight." 

Valjean smiled, sadly. "He became a prison guard when he was sixteen. A police officer in his early thirties. His has been the way of the law for a very long time. He does know how to protect good people."

"He tried, M. Jean. ... uncle. He tried. But when bullets fly, in the dark, on unfamiliar ground - there is only so much one can do."

"You have lost people to such attacks before?" 

"Yes. I just did not think..."

Silence, only broken by the crackling of the fire, completed his sentence. _Not my brother_. Valjean sighed. 

"Are Pierre's widow and children..."

"They are provided for. We stayed for the funeral. We made sure Anette would have all she needed, and the addresses here, too. And I came here with Maman and M. Javert. I will need to make my report to the director of the bank, anyway."

"You can stay here as long as you want, and you are welcome to return, whenever you wish."

"Jean? Where will you sleep?" 

"There is another house nearby where I can use a bed. In case there is no a servant's bed in the attic that I can use, here. Do not worry, Jeanne."

She nodded. 

After a while, the housekeeper returned with a quiet invitation to dinner. They ate quietly, and, after, he took a tray to Javert's room.

He found the Inspector sitting up in bed, glaring in the gloomy room only lit by the fire. He set the food on the bedside, and sat down in a chair by the bed, watching the stern face, the dark pools of his eyes.

After a long, long time, he murmured, "you wanted to save him, too."

"I wanted," the response was immediate, sharp, then Javert took a breath, and looked at him. "I wanted to bring your family home, Valjean."

Valjean shook his own head, reaching to take the hand of Javert's uninjured arm in both of his palms. "You cannot save all, Javert. I know you tried. For that, I thank you." 

"You should not--" 

Valjean's hands tightened, a little, preventing Javert from withdrawing his own. "Before you brought Jeanne back to me, I was thinking how - I was no longer needed. For it was true, or so I thought. You had your work. Cosette has her life. You brought a life back to me, Javert. You brought my family to me, and, though you could not save Pierre, I think you saved Henri." Javert's eyes returning to his were as good as a nod. "It is not easy. To live, and to care. To uphold what is right, and see both the beauty and ugliness, unshielded by rules and regulations. 

"But I thank you. For doing this, despite what you once believed. I thank you, Javert."

After a long while, Javert finally nodded, the rigid tension draining from his shoulders. 

Valjean did not sleep that night. He sat up on the sofa in the quiet living room, his heart and mind too full to seek out any repose. Surrounded by family. 

He was an old man. He should have been dead, many times over, by now. And, yet...

He had never felt more alive, the pain and joy and caring cutting deeply, and so, so beautifully. 

Cosette was going to return from her journey in a few days, if all went as was outlined in her last letter. She would have so much to learn, and so many people to meet. 

He hoped... he hoped that she would like them, and still want to call him Papa when she learned all. He hoped. 

For all of his years of age, he did not remember when he last _hoped_. It was a good thing, he thought. He owed it to many. 

He owed it to the man who had once been able to crush all hope.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was: 
> 
> _Valjean finally finding his sister in Paris. She's not living very well, and he, of course, takes her in, and finally finds out what happened to the seven children he stole bread for. There should be a lot of crying and hugging and attempts to smile before more crying and hugging._  
>  Whether Javert survives his ridiculously acrobatic leap into the Seine and is living with Valjean is up to the filler. \o/
> 
> I took a bit of liberty with it, and I hope I will be forgiven.


End file.
